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St. Bonaventure University music director honored again by ASCAP

Nov 02, 2012 |

ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — For the 17th straight year, Dr. Leslie Sabina has hit just the right note with ASCAP.

The chair of St. Bonaventure University’s Department of Visual and Performing Arts, Sabina was honored by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers with another MusicPlus Award. ASCAP has given Sabina, director of SBU’s music program, a MusicPlus Award every year since 1995.

Awards are granted by an independent panel and are based upon the unique prestige value of each writer’s catalog of original compositions as well as recent performances in areas not surveyed by ASCAP. The award comes in the form of a monetary grant.

“The award is important because it gives recognition to composers who don’t work in mainstream pop or TV,” said Sabina. “There are literally hundreds of thousands of composers throughout the world who belong to performing rights organizations such as ASCAP, so to actually have a board bestow some cash for compositions — in my case, jazz — well, let’s just say, it’s very much appreciated.”

The award recognizes Sabina’s steady compositional output, and that his compositions are performed year after year in recognized venues.

“It definitely validates a continually long run of compositions that others feel are worthy of programming at concerts,” said Sabina, the composer of 50 big band and saxophone quartet works published and internationally distributed by Kendor Music Inc.

For more than 50 years, the MusicPlus awards have recognized writer members each year for substantial performance activity in media and venues that are not included in performance surveys, or whose works have unique prestige value.

“The ASCAP Plus Awards program has been extremely beneficial to our members,” said Paul Williams, ASCAP president and chairman. “Those checks serve not only as an additional revenue stream, but also as encouragement to continue pursuing their craft.”

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